Coquettishness

“ I have watched the victim of the heartless coquette—the young girl gazing with tearful, longing eyes for the man to ask her to dance to whom she has perhaps unconsciously betrayed her affection; she in her innocence like a pane of glass, the other glorying in her torture, dancing or flirting with the man in her sight, only to glut her vanity with another's disappointment. I have watched the jealousy of men to each other, vying for a woman's favour and cutting each other out. ”

“ So far, I think, I have supported my ground against your accusation of coquetry,” added Lucia.
“On the contrary, my dear Lucia, I am sorry to say that you have but proved its truth,” answered Charlotte. “Sorry, because there is, to my mind, no character so vain and heartless as that of a coquette, and I would not that any one whom I love should rest under such an imputation. The moment a woman stoops to coquetry she loses the charm of modesty and frankness, and renders herself unworthy the pure affection of any noble-minded man. ”

“ The word is derived from the French coqueter, which originally means, “to strut about like a cock-bird,” i.e. when it desires to attract the hens. The French substantive coquet, in the sense of “beau” or “lady-killer,” was formerly commonly used in English; but the feminine form, coquette, now practically alone survives, in the sense of a woman who gratifies her vanity by using her powers of attraction in a frivolous or inconstant fashion. Hence “to coquet,” the original and more correct form, has come frequently to be written “to coquette.” ”

“ A Coquette seeks to fascinate for the sake of fascinating. Like a miser, she mistakes the means for the end, and feeds on one-sided passion and admiration, until one morning she wakes up and finds her beauty gone, and herself the most disappointed and unamiable of old maids. ”

“ When I marry a flirt, I will buy second-hand clothes of the Jews.
—Still—mused I—as the flame danced again—there is a distinction between coquetry and flirtation.
A coquette sparkles, but it is more the sparkle of a harmless and pretty vanity than of calculation. It is the play of humors in the blood, and not the play of purpose at the heart. It will flicker around a true soul like the blaze around an omelette au rhum, leaving the kernel sounder and warmer. ”

“ While the normal vanity of the male creature thrilled in quickened interest in response to it, his judgment, his sense of responsibility, nay, of honor, called upon him loudly to let the thing go no further. A patent and audacious coquette on the surface, she was at heart a child who had as yet tasted no reality of sentiment for one of the dominant sex, and to whom such reality would inevitably come with extraordinary force. ”

“ With my head full of romantic whims, and my heart thrilling with vague dreams of devoted love and life-long constancy; a brain teeming with images of paladin and troubadour, and a bosom throbbing with vain longings for the untasted joy of reciprocal affection,—I yet condescended to play the part of a consummate coquette. But, no; if by coquetry be meant a deliberate system of machinations to entrap hearts which become worthless as soon as gained, then I never was a coquette, but I certainly must plead guilty to the charge of thoughtless, aimless, mischievous flirtation. ”

“ In this case, she makes her husband the very personification of the gallantries of the world, and proceeds to play out the game with him, which she had before been carrying on with the dashing beaux of the fashionable world. Lastly, in some cases, mere vanity itself may be sufficient, by its intense action, to make the coquette wear in her countenance, and manifest by her actions, that love which she feels not in her heart. I do not think then the coquette will often make a fit companion for the man of delicate sensibility and all searching penetration. ”

“ According to Johnson, a coquette is "a gay, airy girl, who by various arts endeavors to gain admirers." Natural enough, all that, I should say.
When women are blessed (?) by a kind Providence with beauty, does it not follow rapidly on the heels of the truth, that they are meant and made to be admired, and loved, and wooed by the gender masculine? And when the admiration and homage of men's hearts are offered at the shrine of beauty—and the favored fair one tastes the cup of adulation man forces to her lips, say, ye wise ones! ”

“ It betrays vanity, a want of self-respect, and an utter disregard for the feelings of others. A coquette is a purely selfish being, who, by her hollow smiles and heartless professions, wins to the shrine of her vanity many an honest heart, and then casts it from her as idly as a child the plaything of which he has tired. She is unworthy the name of woman.”
“Hollow smiles—heartless professions! Why, what is all this tirade about, Charlotte?” interrupted Lucia, indignantly. ”

“ They are coquettish; and coquetry is sensuality with style, tamed accordingly, but not conquered. They are at the same time modest and impudent, attack and careful retreat. They are not pure sensuality, but desire, masked by a demand for modesty. ”

“ They all came to her court, as is the business of young fellows, to tell her what love is, and she listened with a noble frankness, having, indeed, the friendliest face for all engaged in this pursuit that can ever have sat on woman. I have heard ladies call her coquette, not understanding that she shone softly upon all who entered the lists because, with the rarest intuition, she foresaw that they must go away broken men and already sympathised with their dear wounds. ”

“ Girard Let's renew our discussion and talk of Lisette again. Because, having so much power over her, being her neighbor, and a sort of surrogate parent, you are working hard to turn her into a coquette, instead of making her wiser.
Widow
Language of Paris. That's what will make her perfect.
Girard Some perfection! Alas, you make her worse, when you come here to refine her wit. You make her heart more false and more vain.
Widow At nine years, she was already a coquette in embryo. ”

“ There are masculine as well as feminine Coquettes; but there is one striking difference between them. To the female Coquette all is game that gets into her net; she will turn away from a man of genius, an Apollo, already at her feet, to fascinate a rough and freckled country lad at first sight; whereas a male Coquette rarely wastes his powder on a girl who isn’t pretty. And even herein is seen the superiority of man’s Love to woman’s. The male Coquette is actuated by Admiration of Beauty as well as by Pride; the female Coquette by Pride alone. ”

“ The father sells his daughter for money, and the mother disposes of her own flesh and blood. The friend cheats the friend. One coquette proclaims aloud the secrets of another coquette, and you think they would treat you better--you, the plebeian, who have to work for your daily bread?--And yet! and yet! It is horrible! The wife whom you adored like a goddess, perhaps even now in the arms of another, deceiving him, deceiving you, only to be deceived by him in her turn! ”

“ The coquette plays on man's vanity and makes a fool of him. The flirt displays her accomplishments and personal charms either to make you have a pleasant time with her, or, when more serious, to lead you on to an offer of marriage, which she will honestly accept, often with the best results for yourself.
It is only when you say of a woman that she is a 'desperate flirt' that you may come to the conclusion that she is a coquette. Of course, when the flirt is a married woman, she is a coquette ”

“ And what is the sin of the coquette? That she wears this expression for several, and gives a promise she does not intend to fulfil. After such an intimacy as ours he must suppose me the worst, the most shameless, or the most foolish of women to imagine such a thing for a moment. He knows me too well.’
“‘You think so; he may appreciate the powers of your mind, he may be aware of your vehement, impatient disposition, he may like your cheerful temper, your demonstrative nature, which knows neither reticence nor art, but he will never understand your soul. ”

“ The art of provisional refusal, and of attractive flight, must inevitably have attained [303] a high development among superior beings, for it is a powerful medium of seduction and selection. Modesty has developed side by side with it, and really constitutes but a fugitive moment in the eternity of female coquetry. Coquetry originates in the young girl who is yet too ignorant to be really modest, but too much of a woman not to love to attract and to retreat; and at the other extreme it constitutes the last remnant of modesty in women who really possess none. ”

“ Coquetry is defined as an attempt to attract admiration and lead the lover up to the point of a matrimonial proposal and then reject him—a desire to gratify personal vanity. Coquettes are regarded as heartless, while flirts are often sincere creatures who adopt certain tactics for the sole purpose of bagging the game. ”

“ Ask an experienced coquette, who has undertaken to seduce a man, which she would prefer,—to be convicted, in presence of the man whom she is engaged in conquering, of falsehood, perversity, cruelty, or to appear before him in an ill-fitting dress, or a dress of an unbecoming color. She will prefer the first alternative. She knows very well that we simply lie when we talk of our elevated sentiments, that we seek only the possession of her body, and that because of that we will forgive her every sort of baseness, but will not forgive her a costume of an ugly shade, without taste or fit. ”

“ It is on the sexual factor of modesty, existing in a well-marked form even among animals, that coquetry is founded. I am glad to find myself on this point in agreement with Professor Groos, who, in his elaborate study of the play-instinct, has reached the same conclusion. So far from being the mere heartless play by which a woman shows her power over a man, Groos points out that coquetry possesses "high biological and psychological significance," being rooted in the antagonism between the sexual instinct and inborn modesty. ”

“ Gladys Carleton was not one of the women who are born possessed of a demon of coquetry. The mere suffering which a man undergoes at the hands of a coquette is not in its first effects so greatly to be deprecated. It is in the consequences that lies the deepest wrong which the insincere woman does to the man who loves her. ”

“ In such a case there is almost always a compensation of Nature's own providing. You will observe that with unprepossessing features, there is generally an elegant figure, or a great deal of expression, or lively wit, that makes you forget that Nature has been less bountiful than is her wont.
Fanciful modes of dress suit the coquette; she knows how to make use of them: they are her counters. She has the art of arranging tastefully even the folds of her dress. Her costume should be full of variety, to be the reflection of her caprices. ”

“ Lady Amelie was the very queen of coquettes. In the course of all her long experience, she had never, through all her flirtations, said one word too much. But no other woman living could imply so much by a gesture, a look or an exclamation. ”

“ I detest coquetry. A coquette Armand, makes promises to many, and gives herself to none; and a woman who keeps such promises is a libertine. This much I believed I had grasped of our code. But to be melancholy with humorists, gay with the frivolous, and politic with ambitious souls ”

“ The forms of coquetry are infinitely varied, and some of them are much more reprehensible than others. The woman who undertakes conquests simply for the glory of displaying at the wheels of her chariot the captive she holds by the rosy bonds of love, is the commonest type.
As her coquetry is of the most patent kind, its wounds are rarely severe or lasting, and yet there is a certain vulgarity about this spirit of conquest, which makes this type of women dangerous to both men and women. ”

“ STORY AND SONG OF THE INDIAN COQUET.
In the last century there lived a man who, in his young days, was a desperate coquet. He played havoc with the plans of many a young man, robbing him of the fancy of his sweetheart, and then leaving the maiden all forlorn. His behaviour aroused the anger and jealousy of both sexes, but he seemed as impervious to the contempt of his fellows as he was callous to the woe of his victims. The whole village buzzed with the gossip of his adventures, and every one wondered how he managed to escape punishment. ”

“ Winthrop was helplessly wrong when he said, 'A woman without coquetry is as insipid as a rose without scent, champagne without sparkle, or corned beef without mustard,' unless he meant (which he did not) to use the French adjective, and not the noun, and say that a coquette is a woman who, by the care she bestows on her dress and general appearance and many other ways, knows how to make herself attractive and show herself in the most advantageous light. ”

“ I used to come down to dinner at Dalradern at times powdered, or with my hair in short curls, à la Sévigné, and my costume all to suit; and you should have seen the worshipful homage of old Sir Within, as he presented me with my bouquet, and kissed the extreme tips of my fingers. Oh dear, what a delightful dream it was, all of it!”
“What a coquette you must be! What a coquette you are!” muttered he, savagely.
“Of course I am, Harry. Do you think I would deny it? Coquetry is the desire to please, as a means of self-gratification. I accept the imputation.” ”